From open dating to ethical non-monogamy, our participants discuss their thoughts and feelings on having more than one partner. They share why they chose to do so and the trials and tribulations of this matter.
As we explore new perspectives we invite you to step into the emotional space of connection and experience the deeper lessons that shared experiences can afford humanity. To everyone who has participated openly and vulnerably in our project - we appreciate what you have shared with us and hope others do as well.
Transcript
0:03
To think that you can own someone's
0:05
body and mind and spirit is ridiculous.
0:09
It's absolutely ridiculous to me.
0:11
I agree with you.
0:13
It's okay that other people don't agree.
0:17
But, um, and I think, I think
0:21
the idea of
0:23
strict monogamy is actually a newer idea.
0:27
Sure.
0:27
I think that we as as humans
0:29
have not been strictly monogamous
0:31
for nearly as long as we think.
0:34
You know, or we pretend that we've been.
0:40
Mhm.
0:41
This is a. Really good question.
0:42
All these questions are good.
0:45
When you think of us together,
0:47
what are your biggest hesitations?
0:51
Biggest hesitations?
0:54
Okay, I'm trying to word
0:55
this without sounding harsh.
0:56
I know
0:57
I was going to say
0:58
try not to commit so soon, but
1:01
I don't want to rush it
1:03
for it to end so soon.
1:05
Okay. - Yeah, makes sense. - Okay. There you go.
1:08
So that would be your hesitation
1:10
was to go, like, slow?
1:11
Yeah.
1:12
So, yeah, go slow.
1:13
Don't go fast. - Gotcha.
1:15
What about you?
1:16
Um. Hmm...
1:19
Maybe a hesitation would be...
1:24
Are...
1:25
Are you, like, very-
1:27
Like, how are your-
1:28
What's the dynamic in your relationships?
1:30
Like. Is it like, are you monogamous?
1:33
Are you open or...?
1:35
Oh, monogamous. - Okay.
1:37
Yeah, you- are you open?
1:39
I've- yeah, I've been in like open
1:41
relationships before. - Wow.
1:43
So I think maybe that could be
1:44
a hesitation.
1:46
Okay. - For both.
1:47
Yeah, kinda. It could be.
1:50
I'm not- I'm not opposed to,
1:52
like, monogamous relationships,
1:53
but I tend to,
1:55
like open.
1:57
Interesting. Okay.
1:58
I feel like there's power in doing that
2:01
or something.
2:01
Yeah.
2:04
At what point did you realize
2:06
you wanted to get a secondary partner?
2:08
I feel this is not applicable.
2:10
to our situation.
2:12
When I started dating you,
2:13
when I was still talking to my ex.
2:15
When I was the secondary partner.
2:17
When... you were the first time, though,
2:20
to be fair,
2:20
you were the first time
2:22
that I found a girl that I wanted to date
2:24
as much as I wanted to date __________.
2:25
Yeah.
2:27
And that was that.
2:29
That is,
2:29
I think in a lot of ways the fantasy.
2:33
I don't know if it's
2:34
never really it doesn't
2:35
it hasn't seemed to have materialized
2:37
very well.
2:37
But that is the fantasy for me
2:39
is like the third,
2:41
ideally the third
2:42
that the like both of us share.
2:44
But you know,
2:44
at least
2:45
a third that I really care about and want
2:48
and feel as much of a connection to
2:51
as you.
2:53
But-
2:54
Yeah.
2:54
The first time I ever like really
2:56
wanted a secondary,
2:57
so to speak, like a meaningful
2:59
secondary was
3:00
when I started dating you
3:01
at the same time.
3:02
I was dating _________.
3:04
I guess before that we,
3:05
we certainly had other partners.
3:08
But- - Yeah.
3:11
What's a quality that _______
3:13
and I if that enables us to share you?
3:18
First of, I don't think you share me
3:20
because, um...
3:25
You don't think or you do?
3:26
I don't think you share me.
3:27
Yeah, I don't know.
3:28
Yeah, no, definitely not.
3:30
I think
3:32
we've got two
3:35
fully grown relationships,
3:39
which both are still growing, but,
3:42
and I think they're
3:47
both 100%,
3:50
which means I have to have 200%.
3:54
And I think I can do that.
3:55
And I think that
3:58
I think everyone
4:00
could do it with enough talking.
4:03
So if there would be one quality
4:04
that you both have to have
4:06
to do this, it would be
4:09
communication skills
4:11
and talking everything over and
4:15
I think sometimes
4:16
we tell each other
4:17
that we
4:18
don't talk about something enough
4:20
or I tell you to explain something to me.
4:24
But I don't think we realize that
4:27
we talk a lot
4:28
and we tell each other a lot
4:30
and we share a lot of our feelings
4:32
about the other partner
4:34
or about our own relationships,
4:36
and that the days that we don't talk much
4:40
or when we're not really in the mood
4:43
for sharing,
4:44
we still share more than 99% of people,
4:48
I think.
4:49
And I think that's something special
4:51
that we all three of us have,
4:53
which makes this work
4:57
Why are you still
5:00
considering polyamory?
5:03
Because it's fun,
5:06
no strings attached.
5:07
Maybe eventually another partner
5:09
who isn't a flake,
5:10
which is impossible in the city.
5:13
So
5:16
why close the door
5:17
that hasn't been explored yet?
5:20
What about you?
5:22
Well,
5:24
if the idea is to share
5:26
peace and happiness and,
5:29
you know,
5:29
openness and explore things sexually
5:33
with other people
5:36
invited into our thing,
5:39
it's pretty much the point
5:40
of a relationship, I think.
5:41
I think you should always share
5:44
happiness and peace.
5:45
And most people
5:47
approach relationships
5:48
out of loneliness and desperation,
5:51
and they end up sharing misery
5:53
and, um,
5:56
you know,
5:56
having been through many relationships
5:58
like that,
5:59
I've gotten to a point where I realize
6:01
that that is the true
6:02
definition of insanity.
6:05
Um, so
6:07
I'm just, I'm open to experience.
6:12
I don't think my mom
6:14
ever understood.
6:16
I remember
6:16
she called me a hoe once, actually,
6:18
that was- or like very strongly
6:19
alluded to me being a hoe. She was like,
6:22
you have a lot of male friends
6:24
or like you're-
6:25
what does Raheem
6:25
think about all your male friends?
6:27
Something like that.
6:28
And I remember
6:29
being like, We're non-monogamous.
6:31
And she was like, Oh,
6:31
I tried that like a long time ago.
6:33
It didn't work.
6:35
She was probably the only person in
6:37
my family
6:37
that I could gesture towards about it.
6:39
And after that reaction, I was like,
6:41
I'm not going to be talking
6:42
to her, to my family about that anymore.
6:44
Also, at that point,
6:45
you had come to Thanksgiving already.
6:47
Mm hmm.
6:47
So I was, like, honest, like, this is all gonna be hectic.
6:50
I don't wanna get into all of that.
6:52
Right.
6:52
And we also didn't know, like,
6:54
we hadn't explored polyamory
6:56
or ethical non-monogamy,
6:57
because that's not where
6:58
we were supposed to be heading.
7:00
So
7:02
being that open relationships
7:04
mostly seem based out of sex,
7:05
and sex is a topic
7:07
I do not discuss with my family.
7:08
We did not really talk about it much.
7:10
I mean, with friends.
7:12
Um, I think all our friends knew
7:15
about it.
7:16
Nobody was about it, right?
7:17
So everybody kind of had
7:18
their own thoughts
7:19
and judgments about it.
7:20
And they were all
7:20
a lot of people already had ideas
7:22
as to what they thought we were about.
7:24
And so they're like,
7:24
Why would you even do this?
7:25
Like,
7:26
you and Raheem are like
7:27
the staples of black love at the school.
7:29
Why are you doing this?
7:32
Um, yeah.
7:34
So I didn't really talk to people much.
7:35
And especially after knowing too
7:37
that people weren't too fond of _________
7:39
I stopped talking about it as well.
7:41
I just didn't have many people to talk to
7:43
about it.
7:45
Yeah.
7:48
Do you regret committing to me?
7:51
Not a single second.
7:54
No. I'm going to expand on that.
7:58
I think part of me mourns
8:01
as you know, we always talk about
8:05
this idea
8:05
of being monogamous
8:07
while at the same time being polyamorous.
8:09
So I'll be honest with you,
8:11
part of me mourns
8:16
and is of choice,
8:17
because as a person that functions best
8:20
in a monogamous relationship
8:25
I still mourn this idea of,
8:27
of, of experience in other people, of
8:30
of actuating love with other people.
8:36
So, so that's just a little more.
8:38
But however,
8:39
my commitment to you, our commitment
8:43
never, never.
8:44
It's such a gift.
8:48
And it was so easy to say yes
8:49
to this commitment.
8:50
I mean, from the very first time and
8:54
I mean, there is not a day
8:55
that I'm not grateful for
8:57
our journey together. So...
9:02
Have you always been into non-monogamy?
9:04
No, I started in college
9:06
and it
9:09
I mean I started casually dating people
9:11
and I ended up being with a few people
9:13
and I realized
9:14
when I graduated
9:15
that I hadn't
9:15
gotten to know them
9:16
as well as I wanted to.
9:18
And so then after college,
9:20
I kind of tended more to polyamory
9:22
as opposed to just casual
9:23
like open dating. - Right.
9:25
So I still do multiple people,
9:27
but I try to form
9:29
like I try to invest emotionally
9:31
into those relationships,
9:33
which is,
9:34
you know, it's gone
9:35
well so far,
9:36
but there is the chance of burning out,
9:37
especially with a
9:38
the tendency
9:39
to give everything you kind of have.
9:42
Right. Yeah. - In the moment.
9:43
So
9:45
I'm trying- I'm trying to do it
9:46
less nowadays
9:47
just because I'm at that part where I'm
9:50
losing energy
9:52
and I'm still trying to figure it out.
9:54
So I'm not super articulate about it.
9:56
But yeah, that's just something to know.
9:58
Okay, cool. Yeah.
10:00
I feel like it's hard
10:00
to like emotionally invest
10:02
in just like one person
10:03
that have many people
10:03
because I've considered
10:05
that as well. - I was gonna ask.
10:08
Because yeah, I feel like I kind of felt
10:09
a little
10:11
suffocated like in my last relationship
10:12
in that sense.
10:14
But yeah.
10:15
No, that's okay.
10:16
Listen, I mean,
10:18
I can't recommend it or not recommend it.
10:19
It's really individual,
10:22
but and I've been having conversations
10:24
with people who don't fully get it
10:26
and it's hard to explain that you can be
10:29
kind of fully invested
10:31
even if it's not in terms of time.
10:33
And if you do,
10:34
if you don't balance it out
10:35
well enough,
10:35
then people can get hurt. - Right.
10:37
Yeah. - Yeah.
10:38
Um, but
10:39
there's never the risk of cheating
10:40
and there's never the risk of,
10:43
um, I mean, I guess
10:45
there can be the risk of jealousy
10:46
if people aren't completely secure
10:48
going into it.
10:49
So it's always good to have that talk
10:51
first hand.
10:52
Yeah. - So I'm glad that we're talking about this.
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